FD London chief operating officer Tim Spratt and partner Charlie Palmer are leading the account.

Ingenious Corporate Finance and Bridgewell Securities are also advising Shed.

Shed’s listing could value the company at more than £40m. The company hopes to use money raised from the listing to expand TV production, increase staff pay and fund acquisitions.

The deal could be the first of several flotations, mergers and venture capital-backed transactions in the TV sector, which is expected to consolidate as a result of the 2003 Communications Act. The new rules prevent broadcasters claiming copyright over programmes after their initial investment.

Shed says that since the act’s inception it has only agreed to deals with broadcasters that allow it to retain intellectual property rights. This has meant that the company also retains worldwide distribution rights to 25

territories per drama and can profit from format sales and DVD and video merchandising.

Shed was founded in 1998 and ITV commissioned Bad Girls, a drama about the inmates of a women’s prison, that summer. Footballers’ Wives, which revolved around the lives of fictional Premier League spouses, was commissioned in 2000.

Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girls are Shed’s most successful programmes and have respectively the first and third-largest audience shares of the 16 to 34-year-old range targeted by advertisers. Shed is producing new series of the programmes.

The company is also launching three new dramas in 2005: Bombshell for ITV 1, Extra Time for ITV 2 and The Fugitives for CiTV. Shed made £3.2m before tax during its financial year to August 2004, a 39 per cent increase on the previous year.